A gun pressed against my temple while Chicago’s most feared Mafia boss bled out beneath my hands, and his enforcer whispered, “If his heart stops, yours stops with it.” Instead of begging, I shoved the weapon away and snapped, “Then get out of my light before you kill him yourself.”

The sudden blackout triggered immediate, violent pandemonium.

Women screamed, glassware shattered, and the heavy, deafening roar of automatic gunfire ripped through the Cultural Center.

"Stella, down!" Dante’s voice commanded.

In a fraction of a second, his powerful arm caught my waist, pulling me hard against his chest as he tackled me behind a massive marble pillar. Sparks showered over our heads as bullets chipped chunks of stone from the architecture.

*BANG. BANG. BANG.*

Dante returned fire blindly into the gloom, muzzle flashes illuminating his chiseled, lethal expression.

"Matteo! Where are the emergency generators?!" Dante barked into his lapel comm.

"Luca had men cut the main grid feeder from the basement!" Matteo’s voice crackled through the static. "I'm fighting through the south lobby! Boss, you've got multiple hostiles converging on the mezzanine!"

"Stay here," Dante told me, his hands framing my face in the darkness. Even amid the roar of gunfire, his touch was steady, fierce, and grounding. "Do not move from this pillar, Stella. I swear to you, this ends tonight."

"Dante, be careful!" I cried, clutching his lapels.

He pressed a fierce, hard kiss to my lips, smelling of smoke and raw determination. "I'm coming back for you."

Dante broke away, advancing toward the mezzanine stairs, his gun barking with ruthless precision as he eliminated Luca’s hired mercenaries one by one.

I pressed myself flat against the cold marble, my heart hammering like a trapped bird.

Suddenly, a heavy hand grabbed my arm, wrenching me violently from behind the pillar.

"Got you, you little bitch!" a voice hissed.

I struggled, kicking with my heels, but a cloth soaked in ether clamped over my face. I clawed at my attacker's hands, managing to drag my fingernails across skin, but the chemical fumes overwhelmed me within seconds.

The sound of Dante shouting my name echoed through the cavernous hall—full of rage, terror, and heartbreak—before my world went dark once again.

***

Cold river water dripped somewhere in the darkness.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

I opened my eyes, coughing against the foul stench of rust, rotting wood, and diesel fuel.

I was tied to a heavy wooden chair in an abandoned shipping warehouse along the Calumet River. The industrial lamps overhead hummed with sickly orange light.

Standing in front of me was Dr. Evan Mercer. His tuxedo was torn, his face drenched in sweat, his eyes bloodshot and crazed.

Beside him stood Luca Rossi, holding a silver revolver.

"She's awake," Mercer stammered, pacing nervously. "Luca, we have to go! Dante tore through the security team at the Cultural Center! He's coming!"

"He won't come alone, and he won't come fast enough," Luca growled, slapping Mercer across the face. "Shut up and prepare the affidavit!"

Luca turned to me, his cold eyes filled with venomous hatred. "Your mother was a nuisance, Stella. She didn't know her place. My brother Antonio was weak—he wanted to turn this family into a legitimate corporation. I built the Rossi name with blood and iron! And Catherine Caroline thought she could destroy me with a few scribbles in a medical ledger."

"My mother was ten times the human being you will ever be," I spat, blood trickling from my lip. "And Dante is going to tear you apart."

"Dante is going to walk into a slaughterhouse," Luca sneered. He shoved a legal document onto a rusted table in front of me. "You are going to sign this medical confession. Stating that you falsified the evidence to protect your own medical negligence. Sign it, or Mercer here will start severing the nerves in your surgical hands one by one."

Mercer stepped forward, trembling, holding a gleaming surgical scalpel. "I'm sorry, Stella... I have to survive... I can't let him kill me..."

"You coward," I hissed, looking directly into Mercer’s terrified eyes.